Winter 2015 At Barn Hill, WA there is a rock cairn atop the hill that was erected by Alexander Forrest when he passed through here in 1879. It is reminders like these that make our journeys inconsequential compared to the … Continue reading Barn Hill
Why do we travel? Well I would’ve thought it was to experience other cultures and lives that are different from our own. Today I was doing some research, which is Grey Nomad speak for trawling WikiCamps for great spots to … Continue reading Oh How I’d Love to Give a Piece of My Mind
It’s July 2014 and we’re hoping to meet our friends G & S while we’re in the Cooktown area. G keeps trying to ring us but his phone cuts out. We drive out to Endeavour River Escape just north of … Continue reading Endeavour River Escape
It’s May 2015 and we’re camped at Pardoo Station in the Pilbara, more than half way up the West Australian coast, a small cattle holding of half a million acres or thereabouts. Heaven knows how many cattle they have but … Continue reading Pardoo Station
At Jondaryan Woolshed on the Darling Downs of Queensland we don our winter woollies and gum boots and join a bunch of Japanese school kids, teenagers, for a sheep shearing demonstration using hand shears. The poor old sheep is being shorn for the first time and doesn’t utter a single baa. Interesting to us is that all discussion by the teachers is in English and there is a bit of English instruction bandied about “one lamb, two lambs, one sheep, two sheep, no S.” Then we learn that if a sheep is shorn with wet wool the wool will self … Continue reading A Lesson in Ovine Plurals
The Jondaryan Woolshed was built between 1859 and 1861 and was once part of the Jondaryan Estates pastoral empire which in the 1890’s encompassed 300,000 acres and was the largest freehold station in Queensland. Nowadays it’s a working museum run … Continue reading Not Your Average Caravan Park
We’re on the road for hours, road noise, traffic and radio static from ever receding radio stations, as we turn into the driveway Gilda runs welcoming from the shed. We follow her little blue Suzuki down through the paddocks to … Continue reading Binnowee Bush Camp, near Bundaberg
Forty kms north of Hillston, NSW on the Kidman Way we turn onto a dirt road and pass cotton farms. There are several vans camped at the roadside rest area. We follow the road for 10kms to Billabourie Farm Stay. The family is not home so we choose our spots from several acres of grassy reserve overlooking the Lachlan River. There is no one else here and it is heavenly. A warm afternoon, willows dipping in the river. Water lilies flowering. All of the usual suspects flit about in the trees, cockatoos, galahs, small parrots, Willy wagtails and apostle birds. … Continue reading Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
About 70kms south of Port Hedland, WA and a mere 9kms off the Great Northern Highway is Indee cattle Station. Alison greets us in the cool of the sprawling homestead. It turns out that she’s from Melbourne too and ‘does the season’ up here. We park out back behind the machinery sheds where there are spotlessly clean portable bathrooms. In fact everything seems portable. Dongas for accommodation cabins and a large shipping container makes for a pretty good camp kitchen. Everything is chained or bolted down and the buildings that have conventional roofs have them strapped down and the wire … Continue reading Indee Station
I think I found Nambung Station on the internet while researching our WA trip. It was only 22kms off the main highway along a very good dirt road. As we drove through Moura I rang ahead just to make sure that they were still accepting guests. When we arrived the manager Sonia greeted us warmly with a freshly baked cake. The camping area is large, flat and well grassed. Water is available and a dump point, there is even an airstrip. I’d like to see Big4 and the other formal parks try to match that. From our caravan we could … Continue reading Nambung Station
